Mark just now asked us to discuss with our partner our work in terms of this question: “How do I make content accessible by fostering thinking?”
In introducing this activity (all of it grouped under the general heading of Teaching for Understanding*),he used two terms that I couldn’t grasp: dichotomous and leveraging. What? I can’t grasp any of this. I really can’t. It sounds cool I guess.
Seeing that Spanish video and now having to intellectualize what I do in my TPRS classroom in terms of that question (which keeps teaching always in the head and not in the heart where it belongs) is throwing me way out of balance today.
Indeed, are we not so out of balance between mind and heart in our teaching that our hearts are crying out for more heart, and TPRS has answered the call?
I can only say one thing. I am here to humbly bow down to and serve my students by offering them one of the things I treasure most in my life: the French language. I don’t know about leveraging content in my classroom.
*Teaching for Understanding in WL is in my opinion a contradiction in terms. We don’t understand a language, we live it.